5 ms·

Wallstreet has rules. They're just not enforced. People would be shocked if they knew, for instance, how many hedge funds simply operate on a model of "black ed

by sfard 10y ago

Wallstreet has rules. They're just not enforced. People would be shocked if they knew, for instance, how many hedge funds simply operate on a model of "black edge" insider trading.

smhost 10y ago
Hahaha, I doubt anyone would be shocked at all, to be honest.
M_Grey 10y ago
>Wallstreet has rules. They're just not enforced. People would be shocked if they knew, for instance... If you replaced "Wallstreet" with "War", your statement would be no less true.
- dickbasedregex 10y ago
  Eh... the difference is when there's photos of war crimes something often actually happens. When it comes out that there were business crimes, no a whole lot ever happens. Maybe someone resigns. Real justice happening there... Don't get me wrong, things slip by on both fronts. But when it's financial, there isn't any sense of moral/righteous indignation to incite actual action. It's more like, "oh, bankers are screwing people again? Well, that's what they do. They'll just worm out of this like they do everything else."
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    You know what? You're right. That is a huge difference, or at least, it was. Now? I think we're seeing a turning point on both; we see what happens in Syria, but realize that we're in no position to prosecute anyone... when people care at all. That said, until very recently I would have agreed with you completely.
    - lostlogin 10y ago
      Have a read of the Blackman case. It illustrates both of your points. https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/16/alexander-blackman-soldiers https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentis...
      - M_Grey 10y ago
        I've been following that through the UK news... what a hell of a thing. After Vietnam, and now with footage of these things, it seems clear that there is a truly strong desire to Not Know about some things. We'd just rather believe in certain myths, because the alternative would make it difficult or impossible to send young men and women into hell for less than dire reasons.
dickbasedregex 10y ago
Wallstreet is dominated by criminals? I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you!
jswny 10y ago
I'd be interested in hearing more about how these firms get away with this kind of thing. I interned at an investment firm last year and the lawyer who worked in their compliance department told me how detailed, thorough, and stringent the audit that was done by the SEC the year before I got there was. Keep in mind, this was a small firm. Do larger firms have some way of keeping those kinds of things secret? Sorry if I'm misinterpreting something here, I have almost no financial knowledge as I worked in the tech department as a programmer.
- camelNotation 10y ago
  I work in an area of finance technology connected to this process. It's no different than escalation in any other form of criminality. Cops wear armor, criminals buy armor-piercing rounds. Auditors looks deeper, so the pertinent information is masked deeper. At this point, the major gap in our financial regulatory process is at the detection layer, not the investigations layer. If you can keep specific scenarios under wraps, you can avoid things quite easily, especially if the scenarios you do cover are impressively complex and thorough. So you hire PhDs in math and physics to identify and create your algorithms. They do a great job identifying scenarios where known criminal activity occurs, but they aren't informed on the specific, complicated, and should-be-totally-illegal actions your firm is engaged in, so they are basically shooting in the dark with no chance of finding the real misdeeds. These algorithms are genius-level complex, greatly reducing the number of government employees that will be able to decipher them. You create hundreds or thousands of them, making it prohibitively difficult for anyone in a regulatory agency to take the time to understand them all, then you assure the regulators you have all your bases covered. You show them the evidence of all the wrongdoing you've identified (also an insurmountable mountain of data) and if you do not leave any glaring holes, they have to nod and walk away. Financial regulations are important, but the idea that regulators could every truly keep the financial markets from abusing the rest of us is nonsense. They can only do so much.
  - ticviking 10y ago
    Demand the market operate under rules that are comprehensible. Doesn't solve everything here, but it probably helps a lot.
ryanmarsh 10y ago
People would be shocked if they knew how frequently soldiers put themselves in grave danger (and die) to avoid violating their command's ROI and the laws of land warfare.
- dv_dt 10y ago
  Prevention, especially successful prevention, always has a terrible PR problem in that people forget the ills that motivated the original prevention framework. One can argue that the framework specifics need to be updated, but I doubt that many soldiers or officers want a reinstatement of dangers and effects chemical warfare for example.
  - ryanmarsh 10y ago
    The enemy I was fighting in particular violated the laws of land warfare by default. Had they NBC weapons I have no doubt they would have used them. Taking the high road comes at considerable unrecognized cost was all I was trying to say.
    - dv_dt 10y ago
      I wasn't trying to imply the cost wasn't questionable! Part of the 'forgetting' is the imposition of new or extended interpretations of the original intent of such agreements that lose sight of the balance of value one gets.
- lostlogin 10y ago
  The flip side is the situation when a war crime is committed. It seems fairly arbitrary who is and isn't punished and what the penalties are.
  - ryanmarsh 10y ago
    From my vantage point as a warrior it appeared entirely arbitrary as well.
- mod 10y ago
kolbe 10y ago
'Insider trading' isn't really a law in a very straight forward sense. And it's a pretty stupid one, even if it were properly legislated.
fitchjo 10y ago
Specially related to insider trading, the enforcement of the rules you mention is made more complicated by the fact that there are actually no laws (rules) on the books that make insider trading illegal (as well as there being no SEC rule against insider trading). When people get in trouble for insider trading, they normally point to it being securities fraud. That leaves the interpretation of what is insider trading up to the courts. I agree there are plenty of people in Wall Street that would do just about anything (including breaking a black and white rule of law) to make a buck, but there is also a pretty significant grey area for what constitutes insider trading. If you are interested, just google "Matt Levine insider trading" and a number of his daily columns with updates on various cases (and his much better explanations of the nuances of insider trading) will come up.

by sfard 10y ago

Wallstreet has rules. They're just not enforced. People would be shocked if they knew, for instance, how many hedge funds simply operate on a model of "black edge" insider trading.

smhost 10y ago

Hahaha, I doubt anyone would be shocked at all, to be honest.

M_Grey 10y ago

>Wallstreet has rules. They're just not enforced. People would be shocked if they knew, for instance... If you replaced "Wallstreet" with "War", your statement would be no less true.

dickbasedregex 10y ago
Eh... the difference is when there's photos of war crimes something often actually happens. When it comes out that there were business crimes, no a whole lot ever happens. Maybe someone resigns. Real justice happening there... Don't get me wrong, things slip by on both fronts. But when it's financial, there isn't any sense of moral/righteous indignation to incite actual action. It's more like, "oh, bankers are screwing people again? Well, that's what they do. They'll just worm out of this like they do everything else."
- M_Grey 10y ago
  You know what? You're right. That is a huge difference, or at least, it was. Now? I think we're seeing a turning point on both; we see what happens in Syria, but realize that we're in no position to prosecute anyone... when people care at all. That said, until very recently I would have agreed with you completely.
  - lostlogin 10y ago
    Have a read of the Blackman case. It illustrates both of your points. https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/16/alexander-blackman-soldiers https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentis...
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      I've been following that through the UK news... what a hell of a thing. After Vietnam, and now with footage of these things, it seems clear that there is a truly strong desire to Not Know about some things. We'd just rather believe in certain myths, because the alternative would make it difficult or impossible to send young men and women into hell for less than dire reasons.

dickbasedregex 10y ago

Wallstreet is dominated by criminals? I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you!

jswny 10y ago

I'd be interested in hearing more about how these firms get away with this kind of thing. I interned at an investment firm last year and the lawyer who worked in their compliance department told me how detailed, thorough, and stringent the audit that was done by the SEC the year before I got there was. Keep in mind, this was a small firm. Do larger firms have some way of keeping those kinds of things secret? Sorry if I'm misinterpreting something here, I have almost no financial knowledge as I worked in the tech department as a programmer.

camelNotation 10y ago
I work in an area of finance technology connected to this process. It's no different than escalation in any other form of criminality. Cops wear armor, criminals buy armor-piercing rounds. Auditors looks deeper, so the pertinent information is masked deeper. At this point, the major gap in our financial regulatory process is at the detection layer, not the investigations layer. If you can keep specific scenarios under wraps, you can avoid things quite easily, especially if the scenarios you do cover are impressively complex and thorough. So you hire PhDs in math and physics to identify and create your algorithms. They do a great job identifying scenarios where known criminal activity occurs, but they aren't informed on the specific, complicated, and should-be-totally-illegal actions your firm is engaged in, so they are basically shooting in the dark with no chance of finding the real misdeeds. These algorithms are genius-level complex, greatly reducing the number of government employees that will be able to decipher them. You create hundreds or thousands of them, making it prohibitively difficult for anyone in a regulatory agency to take the time to understand them all, then you assure the regulators you have all your bases covered. You show them the evidence of all the wrongdoing you've identified (also an insurmountable mountain of data) and if you do not leave any glaring holes, they have to nod and walk away. Financial regulations are important, but the idea that regulators could every truly keep the financial markets from abusing the rest of us is nonsense. They can only do so much.
- ticviking 10y ago
  Demand the market operate under rules that are comprehensible. Doesn't solve everything here, but it probably helps a lot.

ryanmarsh 10y ago

People would be shocked if they knew how frequently soldiers put themselves in grave danger (and die) to avoid violating their command's ROI and the laws of land warfare.

dv_dt 10y ago
Prevention, especially successful prevention, always has a terrible PR problem in that people forget the ills that motivated the original prevention framework. One can argue that the framework specifics need to be updated, but I doubt that many soldiers or officers want a reinstatement of dangers and effects chemical warfare for example.
- ryanmarsh 10y ago
  The enemy I was fighting in particular violated the laws of land warfare by default. Had they NBC weapons I have no doubt they would have used them. Taking the high road comes at considerable unrecognized cost was all I was trying to say.
  - dv_dt 10y ago
    I wasn't trying to imply the cost wasn't questionable! Part of the 'forgetting' is the imposition of new or extended interpretations of the original intent of such agreements that lose sight of the balance of value one gets.
lostlogin 10y ago
The flip side is the situation when a war crime is committed. It seems fairly arbitrary who is and isn't punished and what the penalties are.
- ryanmarsh 10y ago
  From my vantage point as a warrior it appeared entirely arbitrary as well.
mod 10y ago

kolbe 10y ago

'Insider trading' isn't really a law in a very straight forward sense. And it's a pretty stupid one, even if it were properly legislated.

fitchjo 10y ago

Specially related to insider trading, the enforcement of the rules you mention is made more complicated by the fact that there are actually no laws (rules) on the books that make insider trading illegal (as well as there being no SEC rule against insider trading). When people get in trouble for insider trading, they normally point to it being securities fraud. That leaves the interpretation of what is insider trading up to the courts. I agree there are plenty of people in Wall Street that would do just about anything (including breaking a black and white rule of law) to make a buck, but there is also a pretty significant grey area for what constitutes insider trading. If you are interested, just google "Matt Levine insider trading" and a number of his daily columns with updates on various cases (and his much better explanations of the nuances of insider trading) will come up.